Milt Lauenstein of BEFORE

When he answered the phone in his Massachusetts home in the early afternoon of April 29^th, the first thing I noticed was the kindness, the approachability, in Milt Lauenstein’s voice.  You never know with these violence prevention types, they can be hard as steel at times.  In this case I find myself taken aback: Milt is surprisingly at ease and humorous, for such a heavy hitter.

I asked Milt if he could give me a bit of a biography of himself to give some context to his varied and irregular life.  He responded, “What time does your work day end?”  I laughed while he apologized for his humour, “that’s just the way I am,” he says and although I can’t see him, he is smiling.

Milt Lauenstein has had enough, and interesting enough, experience to fill volumes, having grown up in St. Louis, studying engineering at Purdue, joining the navy, economics at Tufts and a year spent in Europe to study painting.  That’s just Milt warming up.  Penniless after his tryst with the European art scene he returned to Chicago to study management which was the beginning of a long career for Milt as a corporate executive.  But, Milt admits, he isn’t really one for a steady job, which he hasn’t held since 1976.

Although Milt’s formal career ended in 2000, he has arguably worked harder since.  That is because, instead of learning the bosa nova in a Californian retirement resort, Milt has decided to devote his remaining years to waging peace, to the large-scale prevention of political violence.  When I asked him about the enormity of this task he said at the time he knew it would be a challenge but “didn’t seem impossible” and I can hear his smile coming through the line again.

Milt wanted to see if he could do something to reduce organized political violence in the world.  By no means a humble undertaking.  I asked Milt about the roots of this passion, trying to get at the back story.

“When I was young man I read about the history of Peloponnesian wars. What I noticed is that the leaders in ancient Greece behaved like leaders behave now, sending young men out to die.  Mankind learned very little how to prevent war and what is more, how to prevent stupidity.  When I got out of the business world this was the problem I was interested in.  I said to myself: lets see if we can reduce warfare.”

The first thing Milt did, not knowing anything, really, about violence prevention, was call his friends.  “I called around and asked, ‘does anyone know anything about war and political science?’”  It was not long before Milt connected with some major players in the violence prevention field.

Initially Milt began funding research projects with various experts, including Dr. Ben Hoffman, founder of The Canada Expedition.

Determined and resourceful, Milt read over 150 books on the topic of violence and related subjects.  When you speak with him, you get a sense of his insistence, his resolve.  As much as he read, however, and as much funding as he poured into research projects, he wasn’t satisfied.

“A good deal was known about the cause of war.  It wasn’t about gaining more knowledge but about using what knowledge existed. I began to think my research was doing much good either: the world is no more peaceful now after what I had done.”

A few years, and a lot of collaboration, later, Milt had a team landed in West Africa’s Guinea Bissau, a country they had worked with a team to select, based upon its propensity for violent conflict.  On the verge of elections, Guinea Bissau had been singled out as one of the world’s most war-ready fragile states. Milt and his team were dedicated to addressing the emergency before it erupted into unnecessary violence.

“It is a lot more effective to work to prevent the outbreak of war than to try and resolve situations like Darfur,” Milt adds.  That is the crux of violence prevention: getting practical solutions implemented to avoid catastrophe rather than sending in relief teams to pick up the pieces.

“What it most important is that people aren’t being killed by the thousands,” a sober reminder of the stakes Milt is considering in this work.

In the case of fragile Guinea Bissau, the projections for violent conflict were grim and despite some startling set-backs for their work, such as the paired assassinations of the country’s president and military leader, the country has not devolved into hostilities.

When I press Milt about this success he says, deferentially, “I think we’ve done some good.”

Some good indeed.

Beyond the implications of Milt’s tremendous bravery, duty and financial commitment, there is something else there too, which I think is the incredible story of a man who decided to make a difference.  It’s the kind of self-sacrifice that makes for inspiring stories, especially when this story’s protagonist is so unassuming.  With no previous training or experience, Milt took upon himself the challenge of making the world a better place.  In this regard we all have something to learn from him.

The Canada Expedition has a team of Expedition Guides who are dedicated to the topic of Preventing and Resolving Political Violence.

They had the chance to put a few questions to Milt:

Guides: What is conflict prevention or the prevention of violent conflict, if you will?

Milt: Conflict can be constructive. What is destructive is violence. My interest is in the prevention of widespread political violence within or between fragile states. By prevention, I mean taking action (as opposed to advocacy) that will maintain peace.

Guides: Critics often charge that you cannot prove that prevention worked and even then the only examples of success that exist are of smaller-scale initiatives like preventing violence from erupting in one particular village.

Milt: The first statement is quite true – it is not possible to prove a contra-factual. The second is not true. While there may be more small-scale examples than larger ones, there are also large-scale ones. As High Commissioner on National Minorities, Max van der Stoel clearly prevented the outbreak of widespread violence in perhaps as many as a dozen countries. A couple of years ago, several groups contributed to containing violence that had broken out in Kenya. BEFORE and others have contributed to preventing widespread violence in Guinea-Bissau and Guinea in spite of coups and assassinations.

Guides: Are there any examples where prevention efforts have undoubtedly been proven to prevent the eruption of a full-blown war?

Milt: See above.

Guides: Some say that in looking back through history we see that humans are instinctually violent while others say that meeting basic human needs through changing existing political structures can lead to peace.

Which is a more important focus for preventing wars: people or structures?

Milt: I believe that within each of us, there is an instinct that sometimes manifests itself in violence. I also believe that there is an instinct to cooperate and to live in peace with our neighbors. Over time, the vast majority of human beings have lived cooperatively and peacefully together. Institutions, such as a police force, can be effective in reducing the extent to which people resort to violence. So can mediators. One reason that violence has been so common in the third world is that many countries lack the institutional structures to maintain peace.

Guides: President Obama has recently placed greater emphasis on the Mid-east peace process in the hopes of ending the long-running conflict there.

Are all wars preventable and/or resolvable or will humans always be faced with a number of wars that will just have to run their course?

Milt: Whether wars will ever be ended forever is not an answerable question. Clearly, wars can be and have been prevented. Good data shows that the incidence and severity of wars have declined in recent decades. There has been peace in Western Europe for 65 years, for the first time in centuries. What is important is that the incidence and severity of war can be reduced.

Guides: Some people say that we should “give war a chance” because third-party interventions can at times actually worsen the situation and indeed some recent research has been done that seems to support this notion.

How do we know that by preventing a war or ending it prematurely through a third-party intervention that we’re not actually worsening the situation?

Milt: Misguided efforts to prevent war can exacerbate situations. A lot is known about how to prevent war and more is being learned. Experienced, wise people, aware of the possibility of doing harm, can reduce and have reduced the probability of war. Don’t let perfection stand in the way of the possible.

Guides: What is the single biggest challenge to this work? How can that be overcome?

Milt: The combination of opportunities to profit through violence, corruption, and the inability of weak governments to maintain peace. Maintaining peace over a long term will give societies time to build the institutions and to develop economically so as to be able reduce the likelihood of violence.

Guides: What can concerned citizens do to prevent the outbreak of war in general and of violence in specific regions that they’re interested in?

Milt: Vote for peaceful policies, contribute money, and participate in work to prevent political violence.

If you are interested in learning more about violence prevention at Milt Lauenstein’s work, you can check out the BEFORE website at www.beforeproject.org.